


break the divide

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Inspired by Art, Magical Realism, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4152411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>leaping with ease they soon break the divide 'tween what is real and seemed. and by their awful stillness, awed am i. oh do they know my dreams?</i> </p><p>inspired by <a href="http://putoshop.tumblr.com/post/48619307864/">this</a>. michael moves into his new apartment and can't seem to sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	break the divide

**Author's Note:**

> title from "[black doe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l9mjdNzAg4)" by mary epworth.
> 
> this was written after watching only the x-files for three days straight. keep that in mind as you read this.

The first night in his new apartment, Michael wakes up in the middle of the night much closer to his ceiling than he remembered.

The July night air is sticky and heavy as he kicks the blankets off his feet, hearing them fall to the floor. He sits up, stretching his arms above his head until they brush the ceiling. Wait, brush the-?

Finally opening his eyes, he finds himself looking straight at the top of the bookshelf on the opposite side of the room. There's nothing but air in the sudden foot and a half between him and the bed.

Trying not to freak out, Michael reaches for his phone. When he moves his arm, the rest of his body moves too, drifting in the same direction he was reaching. It feels like he's suspended in water, the same weight and fluidity without the actual liquid.

He doesn't move after that, counting to ten and trying to breathe evenly. Besides the fact that he's  _floating in mid-air_ , everything seems normal. The night is hot and quiet, blue moonlight drifting through the tree outside his window making the room look like he's actually underwater.

The clock on his bedside blinks at him, saying it's three in the morning. He tries to convince himself it was all just a dream and closes his eyes against the shadow of the branches on his very-close ceiling.

+

Michael wakes up the next morning sleeping in his bed, nothing out of the ordinary. His phone buzzes with it's alarm, wedged between his side and the mattress, and he swipes at the screen until it shuts up.

Kicking the blankets off his feet again, he pulls himself out of bed and rubs his eyes. He looks at his phone and then back at the clock. It says "3:17 AM" and doesn't change, still blinking blue in the sun coming through the window. There must have been a power outage during the night that reset all the electronics and whatever.

He gets dressed, the same as any other day, and is about to get his coffee out of the pot when there's a knock at his door. It's probably either a nosy neighbor, but he isn't in that terrible of a mood so he decides to answer it for once.

"You haven't by any chance found a cat in your apartment, have you?"

The guy on the other side of the door starts talking as soon as its open the slightest bit, his British accent grating against Michael's tired ears. His hair is sticking up obnoxiously and he's holding a small cat carrier.

"What?" Michael asks, not actually catching anything he just said.

"Oh, sorry." The guy shifts the carrier under one arm and sticks out his hand. "I'm Gavin, I live down at the end of the hall."

Michael shakes his hand, confused, and says, "Michael. What was that about a cat?"

"My cat, Smee," Gavin explains. "She snuck out this morning when I was getting my mail. I had the door open for two seconds and she just bolted down the hall. Have you seen here, is she in here?"

The confused look on Michael's face turns incredulous as he asks, "How the hell would your cat get in here if I had my door closed?"

"She has her ways," Gavin waves a hand dismissively. "So she's not here then?"

"No," Michael says. It seems to be good enough for Gavin, as he nods once and bounds off down the hall. Apparently his dreams aren't the only weird thing about this building.

+

Later that night, after he comes home from his incredibly unfulfilling job at a tech firm downtown, there's what looks like a barbecue going on in the courtyard between the two halves of the building.

"Michael!" The British guy, Gavin, yells and he sees a hand waving from the middle of the small crowd. "Michael, join us!"

He briefly considers pretending he didn't hear him and falling asleep in front of the TV like he had planned, but he really needs to make some friends and he shouldn't be pissing off his neighbors this early on anyway.

Underneath the two trees is a small group of five or six people, surrounding a grill and holding various cold drinks.

"Welcome to the Third Floor Barbecue," the guy with the sweet mustache who's manning the grill waves a spatula at him and smirks. "You must be the new guy, I'm Geoff."

"Michael," he says. Everyone else goes around, introducing themselves as Gavin hands him a beer from the cooler. He makes small talk with a few of them: Jack who works in customer service at the bank, Lindsay the animal shelter worker, Ryan who's earning his PhD at the university down the street, Geoff who, as far as he can tell, doesn't actually do anything besides lie on his couch all day and play video games.

Once, about an hour later, the grill goes out briefly as Michael is discussing cult movies with Geoff. It relights immediately, without any matches or anything, and Michael could've sworn he saw Geoff snap his fingers at it before it ignites again.

He figures three beers is enough and excuses himself from the group to go upstairs and fall asleep on the couch. He wakes up an hour later with his the top of his head hitting the motionless ceiling fan. He goes back to sleep.

+

The next morning Michael goes to get the mail and bumps into one of his new neighbors, Ryan. They nod at each other and exchange pleasantries, Michael struggling with the lock on his mailbox. He flicks through the junk mail, pushing the curls out of his eyes and reminding himself to find a good place to get a haircut.

"The barber's down on Seventh Street is good," Ryan remarks as he locks up his box and takes his mail upstairs.

Michael doesn't remember saying anything, he must have been wondering out loud and not noticed. He makes a mental note to check it out, though.

+

Waiting for his pizza one night, Michael flicks through channels of reality shows and laugh-track filled sitcoms, the glow of the TV company enough for him.

When the doorbell goes off, he can't be bothered to get up to buzz the pizza delivery person in, but the pizza gets to his door anyways. The buzzer must've malfunctioned since he never actually presses the button, but the pizza quickly distracts him.

+

He goes to take out the trash and finds Lindsay surrounded by a mob of cats and dogs and possibly a couple raccoons. She doesn't notice as he walks past to the industrial garbage bins on the opposite side of the parking lot, too busy feeding them slices of apples from her backpack.

As he walks away, he swears he hears her talking to them.

+

"You need some help?"

Michael tugs the box down the last two steps before leaning against the side of the stairwell and breathing heavily.

"It's the last of the shit that was left in my apartment before I moved in," he explains, gesturing at the box. "I have no idea why there was so much of it, but it only took a week to get rid of all of it."

Jack pockets his keys and walks over, picking up the box as he says, "Here, let me help."

He picks it up like it's full of stuffed animals instead of heavy medical textbooks. Michael looks on in awe as he carries the box out to the curb and comes back.

"Was that it?" Michael nods and he smiles, waving goodbye and walking back out to his car.

+

Gavin invites him out for drinks the next night with him and a friend of his.

"Is everyone in that building so fucking weird?" Michael stares at the condensation ring left on the wood by his bottle. Ray, Gavin's friend, laughs into his Coke.

"There's a reason I moved out, and not just because I had to share a wall with Mr. Birdnoise McClumsy over here," Ray says in lieu of explanation. The conversation quickly moves on to how life is in Ray's new house, how's his girlfriend, and Michael never finds out what that reason is.

+

The third night in a row that he wakes up hovering above his bed, he can't take it anymore, he has to tell someone.

"What is wrong with this apartment building?" Michael says as soon as Geoff opens the door to his frantic knocking. Geoff looks barely awake, regardless of the fact that it's one in the afternoon, but he waves him inside anyway.

"I keep waking up floating above my bed, Gavin's cat shows up in my apartment even if I lock every door and window, I just had a conversation with Ryan in the hall and I didn't even open my mouth once and I'm pretty sure I just saw Jack carrying a whole  _sofa_ out into the courtyard."

Once he starts talking, he can't seem to stop, running through the list he didn't know he'd been making as Geoff sits him down on the couch, pours him a glass of water, and presses it into his barely shaking hands.

"You good, buddy?" He says once Michael stops to take a sip of his water.

"How." He's too tired to make it a question, the nights of staying awake to fend off weightlessness catching up to him and making him slump back into the pillows on the couch.

Geoff looks at the wall above the fireplace thoughtfully as he drinks from his own glass, darker and stronger.

"You know X-Men?"

+

A week later Michael wakes up the same way, floating above his rumpled sheets and cold where the vent of cool air blows right into his forehead. Instead of flailing around, he turns over onto nothing and goes back to sleep.

+

"Gavin, get your goddamn plants off my window!"

Geoff's yelling echoes down the hall, making into Michael's living room where he and Gavin are in the middle of a video game marathon. They look out his window in unison to see the glass covered in writhing green leaves.

"Oh, shit," Gavin throws his controller onto the armchair opposite him, running out the open door and down the hall to his own apartment. Michael sticks his head into the hall just in time to see Gavin wrench open his front door and get a face full of plants.

"I think the spell's gone wrong!" He yells before the vines grab him and drag him inside.

Smee walks up to Michael from the kitchen, winding around his legs and rolling his eyes, if cats could roll their eyes. He picks him up, scratching behind his ears as Geoff strolls past with a hand full of fire and sighs. 

Michael makes a grabbing motion with one hand and a coffee mug floats out his door and into his waiting hand. It's too sweet, but that's what he gets for letting Gavin make the coffee.

Still carrying Smee, Michael joins Jack, Lindsay, and Ryan in the hallway to watch on as Gavin shrieks and Geoff casually throws balls of fire into the mess of sentient plants.

"Did you catch the meteor shower last night?" Lindsay asks around a mouth full of pancakes. Ryan starts talking about angles of re-entry and Michael half listens to the ensuing conversation. It's more interesting than this at least.

**Author's Note:**

> to surmise:  
> michael can fly (so to speak) and is psychokinetic, gavin is a witch and smee is his familiar, geoff is pyrokinetic, lindsay can talk to animals of most all kinds, ryan is telepathic, jack has superhuman strength, and ray was too normal for the third floor.
> 
> i really hope you enjoyed reading this even half as much as i did writing it, thank you!!
> 
> tumblr @[moonfullofstars](http://moonfullofstars.tumblr.com)  
> 


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